Canva

Canva is an online graphic design platform that is used to create social media graphics and presentations.
The company has announced it intends to compete with Google and Microsoft in the office software category with website and whiteboard products.
History
Canva was founded in Perth, Australia, by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams on 1 January 2013. In its first year, Canva had more than 750,000 users. In April 2014, social media and technology expert Guy Kawasaki joined the company as its chief evangelist (brand promoter). In 2015, Canva for Work was launched, focusing on marketing materials.
During the 2016–17 financial year, Canva's revenue increased from to , with a loss of . In 2017, the company reached profitability and had 294,000 paying customers.
In January 2018, Perkins announced that the company had raised from Sequoia Capital, Blackbird Ventures, and Felicis Ventures, and the company was valued at . Australian superannuation funds Hostplus and Aware Super are known to be investors.
During May 2019, the company raised another round of funding of 70 million from General Catalyst and Bond and its existing investors Blackbird Ventures and Felicis Ventures, valuing Canva at 2.5 billion. In October of that year, Canva announced that it had raised an additional 85 million at a valuation of 3.2 billion and launched an enterprise product.
In December 2019, Canva announced Canva for Education, a free product for schools and other educational institutions intended to facilitate collaboration between students and teachers.
In June 2020, Canva announced a partnership with FedEx Office and with Office Depot the following month. , Canva's valuation had risen to 6 billion, rising to A$40 billion by September 2021. In September 2021, Canva raised US$200 million, with its value peaking that year at US$40 billion. By September 2022, the valuation of the company had leveled at US$26 billion. While its value had fallen significantly, perhaps as much as 35% from its 2021 high to mid 2022, it was still known as a "darling" of the Australian tech sector, along with Atlassian.
Co-founders Perkins and Obrecht have already disclosed their plan to give away much of their fortune to numerous philanthropic causes. In 2023, the pair were named in the Australian Financial Review's AFR Rich List as among the 10 most wealthy people in Australia.
On December 7, 2022, Canva launched Magic Write, which is the platform’s AI-powered copywriting assistant. On March 22, 2023, Canva announced its new Assistant tool, which makes recommendations on graphics and styles that match the user's existing design.
Data breach
In May 2019, Canva experienced a data breach in which the data of roughly 139 million users was hacked. The exposed data included real names of users, usernames, email addresses, geographical information, and password hashes for some users. Canva faced criticism for an initial email to customers, which buried the details below self-congratulatory marketing content. Later in January 2020, approximately 4 million user passwords were decrypted and shared online. Canva responded by resetting the passwords of every user who had not changed their password since the initial breach.
Acquisitions
In 2018, the company acquired presentations startup Zeetings for an undisclosed amount, as part of its expansion into the presentations space.
In May 2019, the company announced the acquisitions of Pixabay and Pexels, two free stock photography sites based in Germany, which enabled Canva users to access their photos for designs.
In February 2021, Canva acquired Austrian startup Kaleido.ai and the Czech-based Smartmockups.
See also
Animaker
Picsart
Fotor
Adobe Express
References
External links
Official website
Australian companies established in 2013
500 Startups companies
Australian brands
Companies based in Sydney
Design companies established in 2013
Mass media companies established in 2013
Online companies of Australia
Software companies of Australia
Technology companies established in 2013
Collaborative software
Graphics software